Virginia is one of the ten states holding their primary elections this Super Tuesday. As expected, voter turnout is low mostly due to the fact that the Republican contest consists solely of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Mitt Romney. None of the other candidates managed to collect the minimum 10,000 signatures required to be on the ballot. Virginia’s 46 delegates are up for grabs in this election. Those delegates will be winner-take-all if a candidate can garner more than 50% of the votes. While Paul is expected to have a strong showing, it is anticipated that Romney will be walking away with all of the delegates.

Seeing as there are no challengers to President Obama, the Commonwealth’s Democratic Party decided not to hold a primary election. Virginia does not require a voter to register with a political affiliation. This means that any individual may vote in either primary. There does not seem to be a push by left-leaning voters to try to sway this election, but there will assuredly be a small number of votes cast for Paul by non-Republican voters.